Mastering the Art of Tarantino
Who’s Afraid of the King of Cool?
Opinion by Paul Maslak
Posted: September 9, 2009
Quentin Tarantino - The Reigning King of Cool
Like fine wine, fine filmmakers get better with age. The more they practice their craft, the steadier and more effective their creative choices. That old practice-makes-perfect bromide is not so hard to understand. Surprisingly, though, sometimes the same holds true for their audiences. The more we watch an evolving filmmaker’s work, the more we appreciate his acquired mastery. I count myself among the latter for the art of Quentin Tarantino.
I admit I’ve come last to the party. But my journey has been difficult.
When Tarantino first appeared on the festival circuit with Reservoir Dogs, I thought he was absurdly overrated: A storyline lifted from Ringo Lam’s City on Fire (Lung fu fong wan), starring Chow Yun-Fat, provided the dramatic chassis upon which to string unending profanity, unwatchable violence, and a denouement with a magic gunshot that could only have hit its target in a bad B movie. Okay, Tarantino had a tiny budget. No reshoots. And didn’t that same magic bullet conclude George Steven’s classic big budget Western Shane in the shootout between Alan Ladd and Jack Palance? To my mind, however, the critics who raved about Reservoir Dogs did so only because it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize - owing in part to home court insider festival favoritism - and because that trophy intimidated critics into biting their tongues rather than report what they really thought. If Reservoir Dogs had a redeeming moral meaning, I would not have known because I was too incensed by the contrived ugliness of the cinematic experience.
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World's Favorite Films 2010
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World Favorite Foreign Language Films 2010
Yip Man 2 (Chinese)
My Name Is Khan (Bollywood)
Nodame Cantabile 2 (Japanese)
Blood Brothers: Secret Reunion (Korean)
L'arnacoeur (French)
Doraemon: Mermaid Adventure (Japanese)
Little Big Soldier (Chinese)
La rafle (French)
Io, loro e Lara (Italian)
Liar Game (Japanese)
Our Rossiya (Russian)
Younger Brother (Japanese)
Housefull (Bollywood)
Harmony (Korean)
Go Lala Go (Chinese)
Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf 2 (Chinese)
Chico Xavier (Portuguese)
Kandahar (Russian)
